Saturday, 7 September 2013

Green Tomato chutney recipe

Thank you to everyone for comments on yesterdays blog, Some I haven't got around to replying to - Sorry!
Welcome to new readers, especially when you say you enjoy reading my ramblings!

A lovely day here again, although the weather men
predicted rain for yesterday we only had an early morning shower, so still
VERY dry and a strong breeze here today will dry things up even more. No good for plumping up the apples.

I finished making the green tomato chutney this morning. It is an old, simple recipe and makes a type of chutney that is good with cheese or dolloped into a curry.
It comes from a very old cookery book, the sort that actually has more recipes than pages, unlike the glossy celebrity cookbooks nowadays that have a huge photo on every other page. My copy is tatty with splodges and spills on all the pages but as I've had it for nearly 40 years that's not surprising.
By the way you will find I always do recipes in imperial rather than metric. That's how my brain works! I'm English rather than European!!

Slice tomatoes and chop onions and mix in a basin with the salt, cover with a tea towel and leave to stand overnight
Next day tip the tomatoes and onions into a colander and leave to drain, the salt draws out lots of water.
Put the vinegar and sugar into a preserving pan and heat slowly, stirring to dissolve sugar
When its just boiling add sultanas and apples and simmer for a few minutes.
Add the strained tomatoes and onions and simmer until thick - about 1 hour.
Pot into sterlised jars and seal.

It made plenty to last all year.
In the cupboard from last year I still have 3 jars of Pumpkin and pepper, 5 Marrow and Apple, 3 Gooseberry and Date, 1 Courgette and sultana and 2 Onion"Marmalade" . Then the new jars of Red Hot Relish made the other day and now these 9 jars of Green Tomato. I still want to make Beetroot and Ginger, Sweetcorn Relish and maybe just a few jars of one or two other sorts.
That will give me enough for presents and for us.

We started putting the Damson/Cooking plums out for sale and they fairly flew off the stall and we picked about 4lb of the eating ( Victoria?) plums that seem to be riper than the rest. 3lb were stoned and put into the freezer and the rest will be snacked on - delicious.

This afternoon I carried on pruning the gooseberries. When I say pruning that sounds as if I know what I'm doing. But really I have only a vague idea that a gooseberry bush should look like a wine glass on a stem. Ours look nothing like that! So I take out any dead bits, anything very low to the ground, any branches that seem to be going in the wrong direction and I also trim the tips of some of the very long branches and try to make a gap between the bushes. Him Outside came to help so that we could get the job finished. He said that two people who didn't know what they were doing was probably not as good as one person who did. Although I think they look tidier now and a bit better air flow through the bushes can't do them any harm.
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I have brought two Conference pears in to see if it's right what someone ( sorry can't remember who without searching back) said that they will ripen well off the tree so should be picked earlier rather than later. They usually get ruined by wasps so if I can save a few for us it will be a good thing.

Strictly starts tonight - Good news indeed. I love seeing how they progress through the months.

About Me

We are both Suffolk born and bred and have been married for 38 years, we have 3 grown up children and 3 small grandchildren. Colin worked for the County Council for over 30 years and then went self-employed to earn a living on our self sufficient smallholding and campsite. Because of his diagnosis of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma we had to give up our smallholding in 2015 and lived in Ipswich for a year while Colin had chemotherapy. Unfortunately his treatment didn't work and he had a donor stem cell transplant.Sadly the cancer has now moved and we are waiting to see what happens next.
In 2017 we moved to a cottage at the end of a lane in Mid Suffolk where we will enjoy the peace and quiet of the countryside for as long as possible.